Members of the public should 'challenge' people they see dropping litter in
public places, a Cabinet minister said.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, supported people who publicly confront litterbugs. She spoke after Alice Arnold, a BBC newsreader, was showered with praise for picking up a bottle thrown from a car and tossing it back at the passengers.

The minister, who has responsibility for waste policies, said it was “just very important” for people to be reminded that they must take responsibility for their own litter.

“I think people feel it’s increasingly important to challenge behaviour that is anti-social,” Mrs Spelman told BBC Radio Four. “Taking responsibility is about raising your children to do the right thing and not being afraid to point out that dropping litter is not the right thing to do.”

She added that someone driving a car should be held accountable for the actions of passengers, especially children, if they are guilty of littering.

“In society today, people want to see others take responsibility,” she said. “And you have a responsibility as the driver of the car for what people do within that car.”

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Mrs Spelman said she had also confronted people responsible for littering, describing an incident in her Medway constituency last year.

“I was driving behind a car last summer in a country lane where first of all a drinks carton was thrown out of one side of the car and shortly after another drinks carton was thrown out the other side,” she said.

“So I drew alongside the driver, and she was obviously a mum, probably quite harassed, and I said, 'Do you realise that the teenagers in the back of your car are throwing litter?’ and she hadn’t.”

A spokesman for the Keep Britain Tidy campaign said littering should become as socially unacceptable as drink-driving. “As a society, we need to make dropping litter something that is seen as unacceptable,” she said.

However, the group was “cautious” about calling for the public to confront litter louts. “People should use their own judgment and make their own decisions about that,” she said.

Littering is a criminal offence that, on conviction at a magistrate’s court, can lead to a fine of £2,500. Councils can also impose fixed penalty notices of up to £80 for anyone caught dropping rubbish in the street.

The Highways Agency says that enough rubbish is thrown on the country’s major roads to fill 700,000 bin bags a year.

Earlier this year, Mrs Spelman supported moves to make car owners legally responsible for the behaviour of their passengers.

However, she has been criticised by some campaigners for reportedly impeding Government moves to restore weekly bin collections.